“When I was 16, they used to pass the hat at reunions and I could walk out of there with three hundred dollars. But, for my first paying gig, we had this beach where I’m from (Portavaco, TX) that was about five or six miles out of town. My brother was out there one day at a bar and he was talking to the guy that owns the bar and he said, ‘Hey, I got a little brother that sings.’ He paid me a hundred and fifty dollars plus tips. For four hours, I sang and played my guitar. It was a straight-up beachcomber’s bar. That was my first paying gig in a room full of strangers.”
“I played with a few cover bands in Texas. My first night with this one band, a lady came and lifted her top. She was probably seventy and she had leopard tattoos all over her chest. She would get really close to my face when I’d sing in the microphone. I didn’t know what to do because it was my first night and I didn’t want to stop singing. She ended up making me forget the words. Then she tried to swing from the rafter and she fell off onto a table with a bunch of people’s drinks on it.”
Michael made his first CD at that age of 17, and every copy sold. He was on the radio waves with another CD at age 19. “The majority of what I write, even if it’s fiction, is based on something that really happened to me. Lately I’ve been getting writing sessions and cuts with people who are established, which is what you’re shooting for. You kind of have to work off someone else’s reputation to build your own a little bit. I’ve got two single song contracts with publishers right now. I’m trying to get a writing staff deal at a publishing company and every time a publisher approaches me and they’re like, ‘Man, I like that stuff, bring it in,’ and I’ll bring it in the next day and they’ll act like they don’t remember, and, I’m like, ‘What!?! What is wrong with these people? What do they want? Do they want gold records from me the first day I come in? It’s frustrating, but it’s not like I’m the first one to discover it’s frustrating. You just have got to keep moving forward and not worry about the criticism and keep trying to get people’s attention. That’s all you can do. Eventually, either, they’ll tell you to go home or they’ll sign you up.”
| written by Geri Jo
